Richard Bachman first appeared on bookshelves in the late 1970's with the release of Rage and The Long Walk. King has said that he used the Bachman pseudonym so that he could write differently and also to see how an unknown writer would do. The Bachman books were not as successful as those penned under the King name, but he kept producing them. In the early 1980's, King used the Bachman name to write Roadwork and The Running Man. In 1984, King wrote Thinner using the Bachman name. Somehow, around the same time, Steve Brown found that Bachman was actually King. The rumor spread fast and "Thinner" began flying off the shelf.Bookstores throughout the country began selling out of all the Bachman books of course, and King finally admitted the truth.